Software for the Market of One

Not long ago, building software meant starting a company. Or at the very least, assembling a team, raising capital, and planning for users at scale. You built products for markets—plural.

But something has changed.

The rise of AI-powered code generation has quietly ushered in a new category of software: tools built for a market of one.

I mean that literally. One person. One user. One specific need.

Calendly Is Fine, But It’s Not Me

Take scheduling tools, for instance. Calendly works well for many people. But I’ve never liked how impersonal it feels. It gives someone an open window into my availability, but that openness is misleading. Just because I could take a meeting doesn’t mean I should. Like many professionals, I want more control—not just over when I meet, but why.

So I still book meetings the old-fashioned way: by suggesting a few times over email. The problem? That takes time. Checking my calendar, weighing priorities, formatting a reply. Too much friction.

So I built a solution.

With the help of Claude, I created a Google Apps Script that checks my Google Calendar for open slots. It reads a few fields from a Google Sheet—how many slots I want to offer, over what span of time—and then generates a clean list of options I can copy-paste into an email. Fast, flexible, and 100% mine.

If you want to try it yourself, message me on LinkedIn. I’m happy to share it.

Guitar Practice, But Smarter

Another example: I play guitar and like practicing chord transitions using the Nashville number system. So I asked ChatGPT to whip up a tiny HTML + JavaScript page that randomly flashes numbers between 1 and 7 at a set tempo, with pause and play controls.

Nothing fancy. Just exactly what I needed.

A tool for one user. Me.

The Rise of Personal Software

What these examples illustrate isn’t just clever use of AI. It’s the emergence of a new mindset:

You don’t need to wait for a SaaS company to productize your workflow.

You don’t even need to learn to code.

With tools like ChatGPT and Claude, the friction between idea and implementation has dropped to near zero. You describe a problem. They generate a solution. You tweak it, try it, and own it.

This isn’t enterprise software. It’s not even small business software. It’s personal software. Lightweight, single-purpose, zero-friction tools that solve annoyances and accelerate routines.

And here’s the kicker: The ROI on these micro-tools is often enormous. Not in dollars, but in time, energy, and momentum.

A New Creative Class

We’re entering an era where ordinary knowledge workers can create bespoke workflows with the help of AI copilots.

That means:

  • Lawyers who can build their own intake checklists.
  • Designers who can automate their asset handoffs.
  • Parents who can build custom chore trackers.
  • Musicians who can generate practice tools.

In short, anyone with a problem can now have a developer on call.

And they can build software for a market of one.